Thanks to a string of arbitration victories in the fall, hundreds of Local 375 members who work at the Dept. of Design and Construction will no longer be required to file financial disclosure forms.

In three arbitration proceedings, the local won more than 300 challenges to the requirement, affecting 117 members.

Living up to an agreement with the local, Commissioner Kenneth Holden subsequently withdrew an additional 100 outstanding cases.

“Most of the members are overjoyed,” said Chris Onyechi, an Engineer-in-Charge in DDC’s infrastructure division, who testified at one of the arbitration hearings. “This really takes a tremendous burden off people.”

The disclosure forms require affected city employees to spell out in exhaustive detail (up to 20 pages) their income, investments, debts, gifts, business interests, property and other assets, as well as those of their family.

“We have protested and challenged the financial disclosure filings for four years,” said newly elected Local President Claude Fort. “I want to thank the members who recently stood up and testified in the arbitration hearings.”

The dispute began in 1996, when former Commissioner Luis Tormenta implemented a policy requiring non-management staffers who have input on contract changes to file the disclosure forms.

Many members filed under protest, and in the ensuing years, Civil Service Technical Guild Local 375 lodged several hundred challenges to the requirement.

The financial disclosure law was originally created to cover elected and high-ranking officials, such as political appointees, but not civil servants like Local 375 members, who do professional and technical work.

“People were very angry about being forced to do this,” said Ravindra Shah, a Civil Engineer who testified in the arbitration. “We were not supposed to be covered by the disclosure law because we are not directly involved in negotiating with the contractors and we do not award contracts. It was very invasive,” he added.

Under the financial disclosure law, city workers are required to file the forms if their salary exceeds $72,000 and their responsibilities involve direct negotiation or authorization of contracts.

“We argued that the role that our members play in approving changes in contracts is simply one in a series of steps for a change to be approved,” said Local 375 Grievance Rep Jon Forster, who handled the arbitration cases with Assistant General Counsel Audrey A. Browne of the DC 37 Legal Department.